《渺小一生》:“對(duì)，那是下一步?！?/h1>

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2020年07月24日

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　 He wipes his eyes and reaches into the box again. The next thing he retrieves is an envelope fat with pictures of them, the four of them, or just of him and Willem: from college, from New York, from Truro, from Cambridge, from Garrison, from India, from France, from Iceland, from Ethiopia—places they’d lived, trips they’d taken.

他擦掉眼淚，又伸手到那個(gè)箱子里。這次他拿出來(lái)的是一個(gè)信封，里頭裝滿他們的照片，他們四個(gè)，或者只有他和威廉：有大學(xué)時(shí)代的照片，還有他們?cè)谧∵^(guò)、旅游過(guò)的地方的留影，包括紐約、特魯羅、劍橋市、加里森、印度、法國(guó)、冰島、埃塞俄比亞。

　 The box isn’t very large, and still he removes things: two delicate, rare books of drawings of Japanese houses by a French illustrator; a small abstract painting by a young British artist he’d always admired; a larger drawing of a man’s face by a well-known American painter that Willem had always liked; two of Malcolm’s earliest sketchbooks, filled with page after page of his imaginary structures. And finally, he lifts the last thing from the box, something wrapped in layers of newspaper, which he removes, slowly.

那個(gè)箱子非常大，他又從里面拿出一些東西：兩本精致的珍本書，里面是一個(gè)法國(guó)畫家畫的日本房屋；一幅小小的抽象畫，是他一直很欣賞的一位年輕英國(guó)畫家的作品；一幅較大的男性臉部素描，是威廉一直很欣賞的知名美國(guó)畫家的作品；兩本馬爾科姆早年的速寫本，里頭畫了種種想象中的建筑物。末了，他拿出最后一件用層層報(bào)紙包著的東西，緩緩拆開來(lái)。

　 Here, in his hands, is Lispenard Street: their apartment, with its odd proportions and slapdash second bedroom; its narrow hallways and miniature kitchen. He can tell that this is an early piece of Malcolm’s because the windows are made of glassine, not vellum or Plexiglas, and the walls are made of cardboard, not wood. And in this apartment Malcolm has placed furniture, cut and folded from stiff paper: his lumpy twin futon bed on its cinder-block base; the broken-springed couch they had found on the street; the squeaking wheeled easy chair given them by JB’s aunts. All that is missing is a paper him, a paper Willem.

在他手里的，是利斯本納街的模型：他們的公寓，有將就地隔出來(lái)、比例怪異的第二間臥室；有狹窄的走廊和袖珍廚房。他看得出這是馬爾科姆早年做的模型，因?yàn)榇白邮怯冒胪该鞯牟ＡЪ?，而不是仿羊皮紙或樹脂玻璃做成，而且墻壁是用厚紙板，而不是木板做的。在這間公寓里，馬爾科姆還放了家具，是用硬紙切割折疊而成的：他那張凹凸不平、鋪著日式薄床墊的床，放在煤渣磚底座上；他們?cè)诮稚蠐靵?lái)那張彈簧斷掉的沙發(fā)；杰比的阿姨們給他們、會(huì)發(fā)出吱呀聲、附著滾輪的休閑椅。唯一缺的就是紙做的他，還有紙做的威廉。

　 He puts Lispenard Street on the floor by his feet. For a long time he sits very still, his eyes closed, allowing his mind to reach back and wander: there is much he doesn’t romanticize about those years, not now, but at the time, when he hadn’t known what to hope for, he hadn’t known that life could be better than Lispenard Street.

他把利斯本納街放在腳邊的地上，靜坐不動(dòng)良久，閉著眼睛，讓腦子回到過(guò)去，在其中漫游：那些年發(fā)生的許多事，他現(xiàn)在回想起來(lái)，不會(huì)將它浪漫化，但當(dāng)時(shí)，在他根本不知道該期望什么時(shí)，他并不知道人生有可能比利斯本納街更美好。

　 “What if we’d never left?” Willem would occasionally ask him. “What if I had never made it? What if you’d stayed at the U.S. Attorney’s Office? What if I was still working at Ortolan? What would our lives be like now?”

“如果我們永遠(yuǎn)沒(méi)離開那里呢？”威廉偶爾會(huì)問(wèn)他，“如果我始終沒(méi)成功呢？如果你一直待在聯(lián)邦檢察官辦公室呢？如果我一直在奧托蘭端盤子呢？我們現(xiàn)在的人生會(huì)是什么樣？”

　 “How theoretical do you want to get here, Willem?” he’d ask him, smiling. “Would we be together?”

“威廉，你希望推論的范圍有多大？”他當(dāng)時(shí)微笑著問(wèn)他，“我們還會(huì)在一起嗎？”

　 “Of course we’d be together,” Willem would say. “That part would be the same.”

“當(dāng)然會(huì)在一起，”威廉會(huì)說(shuō)，“這個(gè)部分不變?！?

　 “Well,” he’d say, “then the first thing we’d do is tear down that wall and reclaim the living room. And the second thing we’d do is get a decent bed.”

“好吧，”他說(shuō)，“那首先我們要做的，就是拆掉那面墻，把客廳恢復(fù)原狀。第二件事，就是弄張像樣的床來(lái)。”

　 Willem would laugh. “And we’d sue the landlord to get a working elevator, once and for all.”

威廉大笑?！叭缓笪覀円馗娣繓|，讓他換個(gè)能用的電梯，一勞永逸?！?

　 “Right, that’d be the next step.”

“對(duì)，那是下一步。”

　 He sits, waiting for his breathing to return to normal. Then he turns on his phone, checks his missed calls: Andy, JB, Richard, Harold and Julia, Black Henry Young, Rhodes, Citizen, Andy again, Richard again, Lucien, Asian Henry Young, Phaedra, Elijah, Harold again, Julia again, Harold, Richard, JB, JB, JB.

他坐著，等自己的呼吸恢復(fù)正常。然后他打開手機(jī)，檢查未接來(lái)電，先是安迪、杰比、理查德、哈羅德和朱麗婭、黑亨利·楊、羅茲、西提任，又是安迪、理查德，接著是呂西安、亞裔亨利·楊、菲德拉、伊利亞，哈羅德、朱麗婭又分別打來(lái)，然后是哈羅德、理查德、杰比、杰比、杰比。

　 He calls JB. It’s late, but JB stays up late. “Hi,” he says, when JB picks up, hears the surprise in his voice. “It’s me. Is this a good time to talk?”

他打給杰比。現(xiàn)在很晚了，但杰比向來(lái)晚睡。“嗨，”他說(shuō)，聽到杰比接起來(lái)驚訝的口氣，“是我。現(xiàn)在方便講話嗎？”

　 2

2

　 AT LEAST ONE Saturday a month now he takes half a day off from work and goes to the Upper East Side. When he leaves Greene Street, the neighborhood’s boutiques and stores haven’t yet opened for the day; when he returns, they are closed for the night. On these days, he can imagine the SoHo Harold knew as a child: a place shuttered and unpeopled, a place without life.

現(xiàn)在每個(gè)月至少有一個(gè)星期六，他會(huì)騰出半天不工作，到上東城去。他上午離開格林街時(shí)，附近的精品店和商店還沒(méi)開始營(yíng)業(yè)；等他回來(lái)時(shí)，那些店都打烊了。在這些日子里，他可以想象哈羅德童年時(shí)代的蘇荷區(qū)：一個(gè)門窗緊閉、無(wú)人居住的區(qū)域，一個(gè)沒(méi)有生氣的地方。

　 His first stop is the building on Park and Seventy-eighth, where he takes the elevator to the sixth floor. The maid lets him into the apartment and he follows her to the back study, which is sunny and large, and where Lucien is waiting—not waiting for him, necessarily, but waiting.

他的第一站是在公園大道和78街交叉口的一棟大樓，他會(huì)坐電梯到六樓。女傭會(huì)幫他開門，然后他跟著她到后面采光明亮的大書房，呂西安在里頭等著——不見(jiàn)得是等他，但總之在等著。

　 There is always a late breakfast laid out for him: thin wedges of smoked salmon and tiny buckwheat pancakes one time; a cake glazed white with lemon icing the next. He can never bring himself to eat anything, although sometimes when he is feeling especially helpless he accepts a slice of cake from the maid and holds the plate in his lap for the entire visit. But although he doesn’t eat anything, he does drink cup after cup of tea, which is always steeped exactly how he likes it. Lucien eats nothing either—he has been fed earlier—nor does he drink.

書房里的桌上總是擺著給他的早餐：這回是煙熏鮭魚薄片和小小的蕎麥煎餅；下回是一片裹著檸檬糖衣的蛋糕。他始終沒(méi)辦法勉強(qiáng)自己吃，不過(guò)有時(shí)他覺(jué)得格外無(wú)助時(shí)，就會(huì)接過(guò)女傭端給他的蛋糕，從頭到尾都把碟子放在膝上。雖然他什么都不吃，倒是會(huì)一直喝茶，女傭總是把茶泡得恰到好處，正好是他喜歡的濃度。呂西安則什么都不吃（他稍早已經(jīng)吃過(guò)了），也什么都不喝。

　 Now he goes to Lucien and takes his hand. “Hi, Lucien,” he tells him.

這會(huì)兒他走向呂西安，握住他一只手。“嗨，呂西安。”他說(shuō)。

　 He had been in London when Lucien’s wife, Meredith, called him: it was the week of Bergesson’s retrospective at MoMA, and he had arranged to be out of the city on business. Lucien had had a massive stroke, Meredith said; he would live, but the doctors didn’t yet know how great the damage would be.

之前呂西安的太太梅瑞迪絲打電話給他時(shí)，他人正在倫敦，就是紐約現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)博物館幫博格森舉行回顧電影節(jié)的那一周，他安排了去出差。呂西安中風(fēng)了，很嚴(yán)重，梅瑞迪絲說(shuō)；命是保住了，但醫(yī)生還不知道損害會(huì)有多大。

　 Lucien was in the hospital for two weeks, and when he was released, it was clear that his impairment was severe. And although it is not yet five months later, it has remained so: the features on the left side of his face seem to be melting off of him, and he cannot use his left arm or leg, either. He can still speak, remarkably well, but his memory has vanished, the past twenty years deserting him completely. In early July, he fell and hit his head and was in a coma; now, he is too unsteady to even walk, and Meredith has moved them back from their house in Connecticut to their apartment in the city, where they can be closer to the hospital and their daughters.

呂西安在醫(yī)院里住了兩個(gè)星期，出院時(shí)狀況已經(jīng)很明朗：他的損傷很嚴(yán)重。出院到現(xiàn)在快五個(gè)月了，他的狀況還是沒(méi)有好轉(zhuǎn)：他左半邊的臉像是融化般下垂，左手和左腿也癱了。他還可以講話，講得非常好，但他的記憶消失了，過(guò)去二十年完全不見(jiàn)了。七月初，他摔跤撞到頭部昏迷；現(xiàn)在整個(gè)人搖晃得太厲害，連走路都沒(méi)辦法。梅瑞迪絲決定從康涅狄格的房子搬回紐約市區(qū)的公寓，離醫(yī)院和兩個(gè)女兒都比較近。

　 He thinks Lucien likes, or at least doesn’t mind, his visits, but he doesn’t know this for sure. Certainly Lucien doesn’t know who he is: he is someone who appears in his life and then disappears, and every time he must reintroduce himself.

他覺(jué)得呂西安喜歡他來(lái)探望，或者至少不討厭，但他其實(shí)從來(lái)都不確定。呂西安當(dāng)然不知道他是誰(shuí)，他是在呂西安人生中出現(xiàn)過(guò)又消失的人，于是每一次去探望他，都得重新自我介紹一遍。